ReadWriteEnterprise

When a corporation stakes its reputation on the competitive value of its patent portfolio, it can't afford to watch that portfolio go down in flames. Although the novelty of most any patented technological concept perhaps warrants some re-examination, three patents assigned to memory maker Rambus were recently invalidated by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in a dispute with graphics device maker Nvidia over whether the act of rendering functionality on a single chip is a novel idea or just an obvious improvement.

This morning, both companies announced they've settled all disputes over the remaining, still-valid Rambus patents, with Nvidia being granted a five-year license to the formerly disputed technology. But this Nvidia win will have implications throughout the industry, as the competitive value of nearly all technologies integrated into a single circuit, may have just decreased.